[TriLUG] sparc ISO download puzzler

[M. Mueller]

Wonder of wonders!  I got the .iso download thing cornered.  I used wget and 
wget -c.  I found multiple mirrors at linuxiso.org.  Whenever I stalled at 
one mirror, I would cntl-C and resume at another.  I eventually bounced back 
and forth between two sites and finished the job.  I think one could automate 
the process using Expect and some timers.  

Alternating the sites was valuable. Simply restarting the download at the 
same site that stalled resulted in another stalled download.

Balloo on the debian-user list gave me this suggestion:
Quote begin:
Give this a shot:
http://www.linuxiso.org/download.php/253/binary-sparc-1.iso
http://www.linuxiso.org/download.php/253/binary-sparc-2.iso
http://www.linuxiso.org/download.php/253/binary-sparc-3.iso

All those point you to a random mirror that carries each image.
Quote end.

With this improvement, you may not need to bang in several different mirror 
sites because the website does it for you.  I haven't fully tested if this 
works reliably.

I was able to download 2.2r6 debian sparc disk 1 with a good MD5.  Now I'll 
go after the RH6.2 zot-sparc to see if I really have this process figured out.

My guess as to why I am having so much difficulty is that it's the ISP's 
fault.  Donald at ibiblio did some poking around with traceroute and found a 
couple of points that seemed slow.  I had plenty of reports that the mirrors 
were working.  I proved that my computers were capable of getting .iso with 
RH7.2.  That's a paradox, however.  Why could I get RH7.2-i386 and not sparc? 
I did eventually get some failures on i386 iso's.  I wonder if there is 
traffic shaping at the servers allowing priority service on some files 
thus leading to better performance on my less than perfect routes?

I more clearly understand the value of the installfest.  I burned up lots of 
time and bandwidth and server cycles trying to get distros.  Time is better 
spent collecting distros at the installfest.  But if you miss the installfest 
and have a less than optimal ISP, perhaps the method above will help you.

Thanks for all the help along the way.

-- 
Michael Mueller
Signalnetware, Inc.
www.signalnetware.com
919.621.6090